Contest games have often been used in the retail sales area, and in a variety of ways. Games are used, for example, in the fast food industry as an inducement to perspective customers to patronize a particular establishment or chain of establishments. In such a use, the prizes awarded are generally the products purveyed by the particular establishment, as well as, or in addition to, cash, trips, or other merchandise.
One application of the invention is for promotional purposes. The most important aspect of a promotional game is control of the prize winner. The promoter must be guaranteed that there will be only one ultimate winner. In the prior art, the primary method of assuring that there would be a single ultimate winner was to incorporate chance. Thus, in the prior art, a manufacturer would produce a limited number of winning pieces and a much larger number of losing pieces.
Games have frequently been used in the promotion of consumer products, either to increase the sales of a particular brand because of the inducement provided by the prizes available through successful completion of the game, or as a means to introduce a new product. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,532 to Kamille describes a game with a playing surface having two fields of play. The first field of play provides a plurality of multiple choice questions, each of the choices being identified by a symbol. The second field of play combines the symbols identified in the first field of play to provide an answer to a question or inquiry there.